Panko & Panda Studios (formerly known as Movie Land Chinatown Studios) is a Chinese film production company that is a division of Movie Land. The company was founded as a Chinese-American joint venture in 2014 by the animator, Pencil Wang. The company will mainly produce Chinese-themed animated and live action films and their derivatives for distribution within China and worldwide.
History[]
Development[]
On March 7, 2014, Movie Land Animation Studios announced a joint venture with China Media Capital, Shanghai Media Group and Shanghai Alliance Investment to build a Shanghai based family entertainment company named Shanghai Movie Land Chinatown Studios Film & Television Technology Co., Ltd. or Movie Land Chinatown Studios for short. The new venture was expected to develop and produce original Chinese animated and live action content for distribution within China and worldwide. The company also produces live entertainment content, theme parks, games and consumer products. Movie Land Chinatown Studios, owned 45% by MLAS and 55% by the Chinese partners, launched on August 6, 2012, with the cash and intellectual capital worth $350 million. To produce animated films, 37 Entertainment, a Chinese animation studio with 175 employees, which had already worked on some of MLAS's television productions, has been acquired.
Former logo as of August 1, 2019
The studio's first feature film, Gwen and Dan, credited as MLCS, was released on May 31, 2019 on Netflix to negative reviews from critics and was a box-office bomb, which grossed $90 million on its $175-200 million budget causing Revolution Studios to lose $85 million unadjusted for inflation. Due to its box-office failure, Movie Land announced to rebrand "Movie Land Chinatown Studios" to "Panko and Panda Studios" in June 2019. Panko and Panda reveal its animated logo opening segment on August 1, 2019. It debuted on its second feature film, Everest, which was released on October 18, 2019 by Sony Pictures Releasing to critical and box-office success.
On September 23, 2019, CMC Capital Partners announced that they have taken the full ownership of Movie Land Chinatown Studios and renamed it as "Panko and Panda Studios". Warner Bros. Pictures and Movie Land Animation Studios announced to collaborate with Panko and Panda Studios for Twister in 2020.
On April 7, 2022, AT&T announced that Warner Bros. Discovery would acquire Panko & Panda Studios, as a result of the company merger with WarnerMedia and Discovery.
Sony subsidiary[]
On December 3, 2022, Sony entered negotiations to acquire Movie Land and even made a bid for about $9 billion, with the intention to own the studio's library, including Panko & Panda's films, to grow the Columbia Pictures catalog. On December 12, 2022, it was officially announced that Panko & Panda Studios will be acquired by Sony Pictures for $8.45 billion. The merger was finalized on October 6, 2023. On October 6, 2023, while the merger was finalized, Panko & Panda's logo was updated, with the "and" word was changed into an ampersand symbol to avoid an confusion, and then the font changed into a Futura font to match Movie Land's current logo. Afterward, its Malaysia studio was merged and rebranded into Namaari VFX. On October 13, 2023, a new logo was announced. The logo showcases Kim Zhu drawing a panda face symbol. The logo was created by character designer Shiyoon Kim, producer Frank Zhu and production designer Chris Sears, with animation services filmed at Movie Land Digital Production Services' Germany studio, taking five and a half months to complete. The characters that appear in the logo also have different designs to better fit in the continuity. It made its debut on January 12, 2024, as an unlisted video on Movie Land' YouTube channel. Starz was the final film to use the 2019 logo.
Productions[]
Feature films[]
Distributor in China[]
| Title | Release date | American Distributor | Produced by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Everest | October 18, 2019 | Sony Pictures Releasing | Sony Pictures Animation Movie Land Animation Studios |
Additional Production Work[]
| Title | Release date | Distributed by | Produced by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loppy the Dog[lower-alpha 1] | June 24, 2016 | Warner Bros. Pictures | Movie Land Animation Studios |
| Go Touching 13[lower-alpha 1] | January 13, 2017 | Warner Animation Group RatPac-Dune Entertainment Village Roadshow Pictures Hands Studio | |
| The Street of San Francisco[lower-alpha 1] | September 22, 2017 | Movie Land Animation Studios 1492 Pictures | |
| Major Lazer: The Movie[lower-alpha 1] | April 6, 2018 | Movie Land Animation Studios 1492 Pictures The Kerner Entertainment Company | |
| The JH Movie Collection Movie[lower-alpha 1] | November 16, 2018 | Warner Animation Group Village Roadshow Pictures Access Entertainment Dune Entertainment Amblin Partners Amblin Entertainment Walden Media Wanda Pictures Aardman Animations Snipple Animation Studios | |
| Stuart Little[lower-alpha 1] | December 7, 2018 | Movie Land Animation Studios |
Production Company[]
Notes[]
References[]
External links[]
- Official website
Template:Animation industry in China Template:Film production companies of China
Template:Sony Pictures
v - e - d | ||
|---|---|---|
| Feature films | Computer animated | Open Season (2006) • Surf's Up (2007) • Open Season 2 (2008; direct-to-video film) • Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) • Open Season 3 (2010; direct-to-video film) • Arthur Christmas (2011; Produced with Aardman) • Hotel Transylvania (2012) • Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013) • Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015) • Open Season: Scared Silly (2015; direct-to-video film) • Surf's Up 2: WaveMania (2017; direct-to-video film) • Smurfs: The Lost Village (2017) • The Emoji Movie (2017) • The Star (2017) • Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018) • Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) (accolades) • The Animals in the Attic (2019; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • Carmen Sandiego (2019; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019) • Chocolate Fever (2019; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • Spider-Gwen (2019; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • Everest (2019; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • Grossology (2019; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • Bunny (2019; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • Cool Girls (2020; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • Las Vegas (2020; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios; Disney+ original film) • Famous 5 (2021; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021; Netflix original film) • Animals vs. Monsters (2021; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • Wish Dragon (2021; Netflix original film) • Sushi (2021; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • Totally Spies! (2021; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios; Netflix original film) • Vivo (2021; Netflix original film) • Carmen Sandiego 2 (2021; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • The Crown 2 (2021; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios; Netflix original film) • The Last Kids on Earth (2021; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • Grossology 2 (2021; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • Super Bowl (2021; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • Hotel Transylvania: Transformania (2022; Amazon Prime Video film) • Cool Girls 2 (2022; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • The JH Movie Collection Movie: Friendsformania (2022; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • The Animals in the Attic 2 (2022; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • Red (2022; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios; Amazon Prime Video film) • League of Techs (2022; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) |
| Live-action/computer animated | The Smurfs (2011) • The Smurfs 2 (2013) • Goosebumps (2015) • Peter Rabbit (2018) • Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween (2018) • Overwatch (2020; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • Jerry and Will (2021; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • The Hollow (2021; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • Tom the Hand 5 (2021; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) • Arcane (2022; Produced with Movie Land Animation Studios) | |
| Stop-motion animated | The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012; Produced with Aardman) | |
| Upcoming films | Goat (2026) • David and Ryan: Into the Tooniverse (2029) • Fixed (TBA) | |
| Television Series | Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2017–18) • Hotel Transylvania: The Series (2017–2020) • The Tom the Hand Show (2021–present) • JH Movie Collection: League of Visions (2021–present) • Agent Elvis (2023) • Young Love (2023–present) • Open Season: Call of Nature (2023–present) | |
| Online series | Go! Cartoons (2017–18) | |
| Short films | The ChubbChubbs! (2002) • Early Bloomer (2003) • Boog and Elliot's Midnight Bun Run (2007) • The ChubbChubbs Save Xmas (2007) • The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol (2011) • So You Want to Be a Pirate! (2012) • Goodnight Mr. Foot (2012) • The Smurfs: The Legend of Smurfy Hollow (2013) • Super Manny (2013) • Earl Scouts (2013) • Steve's First Bath (2014) • Attack of the 50-Foot Gummi Bear (2014) • Puppy! (2017) • The Bunnies in a Christmas Caper (2018) • Spider-Ham: Caught in a Ham (2019) • Hair Love (2019) • Live Stream (2019) • Ty and Abby's Bun Run (2020) • Monster Pets (2021) • Dog Cop 7: The Final Chapter (2021) • The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story (2023) | |
| Franchises | Open Season (2006–present) • Surf's Up (2007–17) • Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009–18) • The Smurfs (2011–17) • Hotel Transylvania (2012–22) • Goosebumps (2015–18) • Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018–present) | |
| Associated productions | The ChubbChubbs! (2002) • Early Bloomer (2003) • The Angry Birds Movie (2016) • Sausage Party (2016) • The Crown (2019) • Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway (2021) • Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (2022) • The Garfield Movie (2024) • Harold and the Purple Crayon (2024) | |
| See also | Sony Pictures Imageworks • Unproduced projects • Silvergate Media • Adelaide Productions • Screen Gems Cartoons • United Productions of America • List of Sony theatrical animated feature films | |